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10’s versus 25’s

Look, I’m going to bottom line this, because the previous post about Cataclysm raid changes is seeing some excellent points, but it’s drifting around a bit.

Let’s cut to the chase.

The question isn’t “Do 25’s deserve better rewards than 10’s”, or “Are 25’s harder than 10’s”, or even “What should be used to entice people to play in 25’s”.

The question is, “Can 25 man raids really be as fun as 10’s to play in, if most people have to be bribed to take part in them?”

That’s the question at play here.

If you would prefer to play with 25 people over 10 people, then if the rewards are the same, it doesn’t matter, does it?

If the only reason you personally raid in 25’s is because you are bribed with better loot, but given the choice, all other things being equal, you’d rather play as part of a more intimate gathering of 10, with less chance for asshat drama… well then.

If you need a raid environment where so many bodies are necessary to win that your asshat or immature behavior will be tolerated just so people can get a big enough group together to get better loot rewards, I can imagine you’re very unhappy right about now.

It really does seem that what Blizzard is saying is, if you prefer playing with 25 people, if that feels more epic, then do so and enjoy the game.

But if you prefer playing with 10 people, if you feel that a more intimate group will be more fun for you, then you can do that as well, for an equally viable, equally rewarding experience.

Your choice.

Likewise with having a capped weekly point system to do away with having to run daily Heroics you don’t like to get Emblems.

If you have to be bribed to do it, then they’re removing the bribe. Now, if you still want to do it for fun, go for it. But it will be by your own choice, not because you have to.

I have heard a lot of arguments one way and the other, but in my opinion, if you are playing the game, or a part of the game, you should be doing it because it’s fun, not because you feel you have to.

If this change they are making results in guilds fragmenting into smaller groups of friends who would prefer to raid in a more intimate environment, then the players are voting based on fun.

I’ll bet there will still be 25 man raid groups. I bet there will still be people who prefer the epic feel of controlled chaos and massive splash effects. As Dechion posted on his blog recently, there is a big difference in feel, and they’re a lot of fun with a great group.

But removing the bribes, and letting people vote based on which one people would rather play in is full of win.

“But wait, 10’s aren’t more fun, they’re just easier to organise”.

Umm… so they’re still more fun for the raid leader/organizer, right? Or don’t those people count too?

I think that another reason is the new guild experience / guild resource system. So you have to have 75% of the raid be guildies for it to count. A lot of guilds are running alliances to do 25 mans. How do you not screw them over? By taking 10 mans out of the loot ghetto. Done.

Your posts on the Cata raid changes have been two of the most sensible that I’ve seen this week, and I appreciate them.

This is not a time (is it ever?) to be putting down other peoples’ raid preferences, and it’s really too early to cry doom and gloom. When people get to experience everything that will change is when the rubber will truly meet the road, and to me, that is the exciting part.
.-= Russ´s last blog ..Thoughts on the Cataclysm Raid changes =-.

I think the lockout is a little puzzling. Why not still let toons that have already done a 10 (or a 25) still enter the instance, but not allow the drops to be assigned to them? I know it sounds crazy, but if the game is truly about playing with friends…they could always offer achievements or emblems or some other reward, just not loot. It makes no sense to me to have to play less.

Interesting…I think it’s going to be a chatoic future….We normally run two 10’s group and a 25 group…and I can tell you this…25’s are harder to organize..but 10’s are just complete crap…while the groups are more “relaxing” they just aren’t Fair….Team A usually gets all the good players…Team B gets the Shaft…(granted I am on Team A and B)…I really think that this could destroy many of the majors guild…and also increasing pugging..(ugh..did I really just that?)…either way…I see DOOM for the way guilds are run…I think my point is this: THIS IS A MMO(massively multiplayer online) …I thought this game was meant to do things as a big groups not tiny groups(see halflife)….we went from 40’s to 25’s to 10’s…what’s next?… screw raiding give us gear equal to Raiding in Heriocs…o wait… they done that already….meh..

@Slide – Sure it does. It will prevent more “hardcore” guilds from using both to gear themselves up faster. Thus, it’s another way of governing guilds from trying to blow through content as fast as possible. And by not allowing people to run the same content twice a week, it may even reduce the “boredom” complaints.
.-= Naturalregis´s last blog ..Opinion Bandwagon: Cataclysm Raid Changes =-.

Would it be because that’s how Everquest did it? That was the paradigm when WoW entered the marketplace.

It is a massively game, but that, as far as I ever remember, wasn’t based on the size of raid groups. It was based on breaking away from the limitations of LAN groups and into seemingly unlimited world server populations.

Now, Everquest does not set the course WoW follows, WoW sets it’s own course. Sort of.

Sure, they started with 40. In the very next expansion, they went to a 10 starter and made the high end 25s.

In Wrath they made everything either 10 OR 25, players choice.

Now they’re saying they’re keeping the 10/25 design, but making challenge and loot rewards equal.

I honestly do not see an inconsistency here. They started with what EQ did, tried it for a few years and took feedback, implemented a big change, found a huge demand for 10s over 25s, increased capacity to meet demand in the 2nd expansion, tried it on, listened to feedback, and now are fine tuning the process further.

They’re still giving every player the option of choosing what they’d prefer to do. I stand by my statement that if 25s will die simply because the bribe is removed, then they should die.

I just don’t think they will. They’re too fun. Having the option of saying, “Hey, let’s all go do x tonight” is too attractive in a bigger guild. I get emails, I know there are plenty of people who love raiding in 25s, and it’s not about the loot.

Excellent ‘cut to the chase’ post. As usual, you get the heart of the matter. I’ve been a really excellent 10-man guild that tried to get into 25s and couldn’t get over the chump hump. That guild finally disbanded after some of the stronger players jumped to a more established 25-man guild. I’ve been with an excellent 25-man guild that finally gave up and disbanded after the guild leadership got burned out dealing with the constant bickering that the 25-man requirement generated. They now run 2 pretty successful 10s.

When I read the proposal I was very pleased – my initial reactions were something like “Sweet, now I don’t have to raid five nights a week!” To me, it never seemed like the supplemental 10-mans were optional – they were expected to show the guild leadership that you were doing everything you could to gear yourself for the 25 man raids that never seem to drop enough loot.
.-= Helver´s last blog ..The Death of Epic Raiding? =-.

I like doing both 10 and 25 mans. At first I was upset that I wouldn’t get as many badges (I like making ICC patterns for guildies hehe) but with the weekly caps on badges I don’t think that will matter as much. What does bother me is that my current group has about 15-20 really good raiders. There are 5 or so that we all know we carry (even they know they are being carried) through the content. It doesn’t bother any of us though because they are really good people to hang out with. I think we will still runs 25s with all the changes but I will be very sad if these changes cause good people like that to not be able to get into a 10 man group because people are going to become elitsit about who can get in. They are going to drop average raiders quickly for fear of not getting through the instance. I see that right now in TOC10 pugs. People get booted after the first boss who did average dps even though we downed the thing with no problem. It’s getting so bad that many people running 10 man pugs won’t accept anyone with less than 5700-5800 gearscore. That is just ridiculous when lesser geared players can still easily get through most of the content. bleh

The victims are the elitist epeeners that were crying when normal Ulduar nerfs were happening and hard mode achievements were not enough. Now they have to share progression against 10 man raids… boo hoo…

Very good post BBB, I really think Blizzard has done a great job letting the game evolve the way it has.

@Don…

If your 25 man raiding guild splits into 2 10 man teams and they are not equal your were running 25 mans carrying people anyway. Now 10 good players can stop carrying the bads and actually have fun. If they had fun even though there were some inequities of talent they will still raid 25s in Cataclysm… cause that’s whats fun to them.
.-= Jacemora´s last blog ..Cataclysm Raiding Changes =-.

The victims are the elitist Epeeners that were crying when normal Ulduar nerfs were happening and hard mode achievements were not enough. Now they have to share progression against 10 man raids… boo hoo…

Very good post BBB, I really think Blizzard has done a great job letting the game evolve the way it has.

@Don…
If your 25 man raiding guild splits into 2 10 man teams and they are not equal your were running 25 mans carrying people anyway. Now 10 good players can stop carrying the bads and actually have fun. If they had fun even though there were some inequities of talent they will still raid 25s in Cataclysm… cause that’s whats fun to them.
.-= Jacemora´s last blog ..Cataclysm Raiding Changes =-.

@Facetank: I 100% agree with you. That’s just got to be one of the biggest concerns to have; that guilds do not drop people just because content becomes more tightly tuned and gear levels do not allow guilds to overpower content to the extent they do now, with the result of dropping anyone that is perceived of being inadequate.

I think your point deserves one hell of a blog post all by itself. Because we have allowed ourselves, for the most part, to get lazy.

It’s all about the team. It’s not carrying, it’s working within the capabilities of the team. Sure, the tendency in impersonal raids is to just kick anyone that doesn’t measure up to standards. But how much better to try and do what we did in the old days; teach. Practise. Learn. Grow.

Did everyone playing a Hunter start off knowing how to chain trap? Or did they face the need to learn, and find coaching or practise until they got it?

It will behoove all of us, before we face a challenge and point fingers of blame and look to kick, to first start by seeing if we are as skilled as we all can be, CCing what we can, focusing on the right targets, and adjusting our play to compensate for the changes.

I for one am certainly not prepared to chain trap on my Hunter like the old days. My macro buttons are gone, and I’d need to practise. Probably a lot.

Sadly, I really do agree with you. There will undoubtedly be a lot of people treated poorly when the first frustrations of not being able to steamroll something hit home.

I feel like this post (and this sentiment generally) misses the point that stratification is important to an MMO. There really is a place for the “haves” and the “have-nots”, and it fills a valuable psychological role that makes the game significantly more fun. Or at least, more fun for some of us. I’m not willing to push unequivocally my point of view on the whole player base.

As a lowly newbie, I really and truly looked up to people who were in high-end raiding guilds and had vastly better gear than I could hope to accomplish. I didn’t mind that I was only able to get a little into AQ40 that Burning Crusade hit and that I didn’t get to see Naxx40. Rather, I loved that I *had* to work my way through the content and was in awe of people who cleared Naxx40 and had amazing gear and could do incredible things that I could never hope to accomplish. When I was in a Sunwell-level guild, I loved that I could step into AV in my T6 Prot Warrior and tank the end boss and all his Warmasters by myself, that my mere presence could turn the tide of the battle, could make an entire night of AVs into a string of victories. I’d done the work, and people who were stuck in T5 content hadn’t. They weren’t worse people for it, but they had something to aspire to, which was to be me.

This sounds egoistic and not at all relevant, but stick with me a bit. I don’t believe that 10-man content can ever be equal in difficulty to 25-man content. Even if parity is achieved on some fights, 25-man and 10-man mechanics cannot scale to each other. Either 10-man content will be easier than 25-man content or 25-man content will be dumbed-down so that the mechanics properly scale down to 10-man content.

Raiding needs to be a rewarding game. Rewards come as loot and as having overcome a difficult challenge. 25-man raid content *needs* to be difficult to provide satisfaction to players. Players can only experience this satisfaction if they know that much of the content cannot be overcome by most players. Yogg+0, Anub Heroic, these fights define this expansion because they separate the good from the bad. But much of the fun for both the good and the bad revolves around having celebrities.

Limitations on 25-man content (or whatever the top-tier content is) hurt this whole system. I would argue that the normal/heroic distinctions hurt this system as well. I *love* the idea that 10-man content exists. I would prefer the Burning Crusade system, as Kara and ZA were a couple of my favorite dungeons of all-time (Kara being uniquely fun, the ZA bear run being challenging). My second choice would be to have a deliberate, distinct, and challenging 10-man progression path for 10-man raiders. But I do think that anything that infringes upon the top-tier of raid content is damaging to the game as a whole.

Whether or not they can implement comparably-difficult 10-man raiding is still up for debate, certainly, but I firmly believe that they cannot.

What I dislike is the shared lockout between the two. If we fall short on a 25 man its rarely by 15 people that means around twenty people online wanting to raid and ten of them having to sit out through no fault of their own.

That’s what will kill 25 man raids, better to plan for two ten mans and have two raid lockouts than plan for a 25 man and have to bench half your raiders half way through a lock out.

Really not fussed about the rewards, never have been. I like the epic feel of 40 mans and for me cut down versions of 25 mans aren’t epic. Instances like Kara or ZA (or even ZG when 20 mans were the ‘small’ raid) that were designed for 10 mans I love. 10 man Nax etc I’d rather not bother with till I can solo them like Deadmines.

While I think this is the best Cata news yet, and I’m definitely looking forward to the change (as a 10 raider myself), there is one legitimate concern that Facetank touched upon. It goes a step further though. If loot in 10s and 25s are equal, then 10 Hard Mode loot will be better than 25 Normal Mode loot. If you can only do 10s or 25s, not both, then the best players in 25 runs are actually looking at a bribe to ditch the other 15; not just the bad players, but even those who may pull their own weight just fine in normal mode content (just not in hard modes).

Getting 25 people together will likely get harder under those circumstances for those who like the “epic” feel of 25s. Personally, I find 25s to be 2.5 times the people, 5 times the stupid, and 10 times the waiting around, but it’s not fair to just dismiss the concerns of those who enjoy that part of the game. Blizzard will likely have to find a suitable bribe to encourage people to put up with the hassle of 25s. It just can’t be loot quality, as that just leads to too many issues with balancing content.

I have to disagree on this one BBB, “If you need a raid environment where so many bodies are necessary to win that your asshat or immature behavior will be tolerated just so people can get a big enough group together to get better loot rewards, I can imagine you’re very unhappy right about now.”
I enjoy raiding with the guild doing 25’s, not for the reasons you said, and yes i’m unhappy about this change so far. As I commented on your last post, I think the idea is stupid but hope to be wrong. I don’t matter if Blizzard want to make the game easier for new people by giving the same loot for 10 or 25’s, to be honest that will help also my alts and some friends that are not in a good guild or just don’t have enough time to be in one. That point is not bad to me, what i’m unhappy about is the fact that you can only do 10 or 25’s, I think that’s stupid and not fair, ie. I use to raid with guild and also with some friends from other guild or guildless just for the fun of it. I like to be a hardcore, study the fights and feel the challenge, also frustration of not being able to do something; but also i like to just make a quick raid, messing, joking, dying, relaxing, with friends, maybe we can just kill a couple of boss in some hours, but is just to spend some time.

But well, i just hope Blizzard really think about this, if they want just to give same loot for both i couldn’t care less, but force just to run one or the other, that’s completely different.

I think the other part of this equation ties into the difficulties the various progression tracking sites have had in defining the meaning of a “10-man strict” guild, since using 25 man gear can make the 10 man fights much easier than they would be in raid appropriate gear. With 25’s just providing more loot per person rather than better loot, that situation will no longer apply.

@Thorn: Since Blizzard have said their going to provide two separate raids (or at least raid wings with separate lockouts) per tier, why not plan a 25-man raid to instance A, with 2 10-man raids to instance B as the fallback? Then switch the raids around (25 B, 2×10 A) either every other week or once instance A is done? And once we get to the second tier of Cataclysm, mix previous tier hard modes in there as well?

@Khane: I’ll say to you then that your complaint isn’t really with shared 10/25 lockouts, it’s with the raid lockout system in general being seriously unfun. Yes, it achieves its intended purpose of limiting loot acquisition rates, but only at a high cost in severely restricting what people can do to help their friends out.

Better to fix the raid lockout system than to continue on with the very clumsy 10/25 split. (e.g. why should a 25-man hard mode progression raider be allowed to play around with friends in the 10-man version of that same raid, but not a 10-man hard mode progression raider? Same question, but the other way around, for a big “just for the hell of it” 25-man normal mode alliance that some progression raiders like to lead in their downtime?)

Raid lockouts serve their purpose (so you can’t just ditch them entirely), but the current design has some serious flaws. Eliminating the 10/25 workaround makes it more likely that those flaws will actually be addressed directly.

I can’t remember where I read this but a commenter posited a unique solution to the raid lockout controversy. They said if Blizzard’s true reason for consolidating 10/25 lockouts is to prevent people from gearing up too quickly and eventually brute forcing the 10mans faster than Blizzard’s timeline, then rather than mutually exclusive lockouts Blizzard should create a weekly method of toggling which size raid you would like to be eligible to receive loot in, but still allow you to run the other size. Since both 10 and 25 raids will be dropping the same quality of loot I think this would be a homerun from a fairness perspective because it would allow players extra play time if they so desire but prevent them from out gearing the dungeon as quickly as the Lich King approach. However, it would likely cause issues in the application of making the code work this way, and in my mind it would still lead players to get bored of the content faster than the currently announced plan because they would spend more hours/character in the new raids.

Anyway, que sera, sera and all that crap. The only thing we can really do is grin and see how it turns out. I’m actually excited for the announced changes if only because it encourages people to raid with more of their alts rather than multiple raids on the same toon. I currently have 2 80’s, one 76, one 74 and a bunch of munchkins. Every toon I level gives me a greater appreciation for the truly talented players as well as a better understanding of how to maximize the synergy of the different group compositions. In short, I become better because I know more . . . go figure.

40s weren’t, for the most part, fun. Oh, they could be, but most of the times I got into one it was with a leadership group that was very… authoritarian. It was a job, really, and there were always enough people wanting in that you toed the line or were replaced. Add to this that usually only five to ten people in the group got GOOD stuff and, well, it became a job.

25s were better, but still ran into the problem. I managed to find some groups more into it for fun than epeen, but there was still a tendency to need two to five runs before YOU got loot — and there still seemed to be a need to toe the line or get replaced. Instead of fun it was still a job.

Oh, and I almost forgot the hours spent getting this, that and the other supplies and repairs and such in preparation each week.

10s were fun. I had a couple of times I wished I could get 15s, but I could almost always get a 10 together.

Yeah, I’m in agreement, BBB. Prioritize fun first, and the rest will fall into place.

From my perspective as a raid healer I feel more powerful healing a 10 man group for the specific reason that more hinges on me in 10 man than 25 man. If a non-tank dies in 10 man the negative impact on the outcome will be greater than in 25 man, making my job as a raid healer more important. It makes me feel more significant and like my contribution to the group is an integral part of achieveng the kill. Sadly I do not feel the same way in 25 man raids.

I look forward to having equal difficulty in 10 man raids compared to 25 in Cataclysm so I can focus on 10 man without having to give up the loot bonus and especially the difficulty level.

I myself dont do 25 man’s, But I am a bit concerned about the lockout. I understand the logic behind it and support it, however I feel there might be a better way to control it.

As for the people who are afraid there going dropped from their 25 man so the A-Team can do 10 man. I say either make a new team, or pull up your socks and let them know you deserve a spot in the A team.

Having run 40 man’s in the past, the change to 25 from 40 in BC was a welcome change, Less having to deal with mediocre players, people who geared and left, and less drama. Then in Wotlk, we discovered 10 man’s Wow, what a god send this was. Even though we still wipe a lot, we dont have tag alongs complaining that its too expensive, too annoying, or people who just dont log in. Managing 10 people is easier. play style is harder, since we dont always have a mana battery, and we havent had a mage in a year now.

25 man’s are going to be easier, just by its very nature. its going to have to be the same fight as the 10 man, with more health ( IMO) I doubt its going to be more complex since they are saying same loot. I figure there going to just look at the 10 man and say how much time did it take to get to 0% and the enrage timer, and multiply it by X. which also means, those who can sacrifice a healer and tank or 2 can bring more DPS. which isnt possible in the 10 man.
In my 10 man , we are 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 DPS, and because one of the healers is also Ret, we can sometimes get away with 2 healers and shave 2-3 minutes off an enrage timer.

Okay, first of all, using the term “bribe” implies that the greater reward for running 25 man raids is intended to corrupt the players. I’m not even sure if that applies, or why you chose that term.

Secondly, if giving a greater reward for doing harder work is bribing, then blizzard is *also* bribing people to raid in 10-mans, since the rewards are significantly higher than 5-man instances. Oh, and they’re bribing people to play Heroic 5-mans, because the rewards are higher than the regular 5-mans…etc. To follow your conclusion, there shouldn’t be reward for activities, just a standard amount of gold given each week that a subscription is active, we should only have achievements (with no rewards) and people should only do things if they want to do them for fun.

What this logic ignores, of course, is that doing something challenging, succeeding, and getting a reward is part of what *makes* the game fun. If you’re doing more challenging objectives, the rewards should be commensurately greater. The challenge isn’t just about loot drama. I’m in a guild that raids. There’s very little loot drama, because we laid out the loot rules plain as day to all our members. The challenge is the team coordination part of it. They both take significant coordination, but the pacing and team coordination challenge is different for each.

Menglor, the lockout is specifically something I’m not talking about, or allowing to have any kind of impact on my own personal feelings on this post, because it is seperate from the issue I’m talking about, which is the loot and challenge normalization between raid sizes.

The lockout, in my opinion, while still being a huge part of their raid changes, is a seperate issue. I want to talk about one issue, get things out about that one issue clearly without muddied waters or emotional rhetoric (if that’s even possible), and then look at the next issue.

Just because all the topics are concerning raid changes in general doesn’t mean, to me, it should all be lumped together as a “love or hate everything, and keep or throw everything” situation.

What I get from these discussions, more than anything else, is a fine appreciation for how people try and twist facts to support what they emotionally want an answer to be.

For example, this one tactic; A person claims that it is impossible for Blizzard to balance the 25s and 10s equally, and then, using that statement as indisputable fact for their foundation, goes on to build an entire castle made of sand on top of it, bitching and moaning.

Unfortunately, they built their argument on an opinion, not a fact, and one that I don’t just automatically share. In this example, it seems obvious to me (if not to anyone else) that nobody can claim as fact that Blizzard cannot balance these challenges, when there are no actual data out yet to base such a statement on, not even in PTRs. There’s a lot more to balancing content then scaling.

Everything here, including my posts, are in the realm of conjecture, supposition, blue sky bullshitting and passing the time waiting for real news. It’s fun to talk about, but it amazes me the people that get pissy about things, and by god you’d better sit up and pay attention, because they’re pissed.

Wait until you’re playing it on your computer before you get pissed, is what I say, and leave the silly debate fail techniques at home.

Someone emailed me saying that they saw where someone showed my point of view was flawed, because Blizz isn’t reducing the 25 gear value, they’re buffing the 10s so that the 10 person players are being bribed to play.

That’s an interesting spin to take. I get a lot of people emailing me to point out where I screwed up or am wrong, and, well, they’re often correct. :) I love having people step back, look at the discussion and see where something can be approached two different ways, and then show how I may have taken one approach, but the other is equally valid. It’s just how you look at it.

In this case though, I really didn’t see where the facts would support that idea. I can see where someone that loves 25s would want it to work that way, but, well, hey, you be the judge. When 10 and 25 gear is released right now for the same raid instance, they have to create one iLevel of gear for 10s, then a second one with an even higher iLevel for 25s.

If Blizzard goes forward with one level of gear for both raid sizes… why would they skip the 10 man iLevel and leapfrog completely over it, setting the bar twice as high as they need to? Why would they go from 232 directly to 251, skipping 245?

They might. They actually might. Again, I don’t know. It’s not live and I don’t have a crystal ball. But it doesn’t seem reasonable to me to assume that they would skip from 232 directly to 251, or 264, without having anything at that middle step. And, since it is the 10 man raid that would normally have that next step, and it is 25 man raids that would be suddenly using rewards normally given to 10 mans, that’s where I would state the situation as being 10s staying the same in terms of rewards, and 25s being brought in line with them.

Now, what I wonder is, given that we already have such a wide range of iLevels in existing raids, will all existing 264 gear suddenly be the baseline for all Icecrown Citadel raids and heroic point rewards when Cataclysm is released? Will ICC become equalised from 264 gear, doing exactly what was suggested, increasing the reward value of existing 10s?

See, that is where it’s the point of view. In one way, it could be exactly right. When Cataclysm is released, Blizz might set the 1st new raid at, say, 275 iLevel. But, since that is both 10 and 25, might they also want to do one last normalization in the months before it goes live to let players prepare, making the existing content even out? Maybe they’ll leave the 10 and 25 man loot the same, but make it even easier to get Frost emblems. Or maybe they’ll change ICC 10 loot to match 25s, bribing more people to do 10s.

Who knows? It’s all guesswork and supposition. But ain’t it fun to talk about instead of work?

@Grim: calling the better loot in the 25 man raids “bribery” is a direct response to the players that say “I personally prefer 25 man raids because I find them more fun and don’t care about the loot, but I’m afraid there aren’t enough other people that feel the same way so I don’t believe I will be able to fill a 25 man raid group in Cataclysm if there aren’t extra people doing 25 man raids purely for the better loot”. It’s taking their own statement that their personal reasons for doing 25 man raids are “pure” and using it to ask if they really need those additional players that are currently there solely for “corrupt” reasons.

If someone is in a 25 man raid just for the better loot, then they’re the ones that are most likely to be the first to get upset because the group is wiping too much (no loot!), or chuck a tantrum when loot distribution doesn’t go their way. Players that are there because they genuinely prefer the larger group size are far more likely to take failures in stride, and be more philosophical about it if loot they wanted ends up in someone else’s hands.

You’re right that this argument can be pushed to absurdity, but it is actually human social dynamics that makes that unnecessary. There’s been plenty of organisational research that shows humans actually cope pretty well with informal team sizes up to 12 or so people. Getting beyond that size, informal interpersonal links start to become inadequate to maintain team coherency, so you need more formal structures to manage communications (I believe the exact size where things break down varies between 5 and 15 according to the task being studied and the specific people involved, but I find it illuminating to try to think of team sports that have more than 15 players per side involved at any one time – the two games I am aware with the largest team size are rugby union and aussie rules, and they’re both 15 players a side). The fact that 10 is less than 12, while 25 is larger is significant when it comes to the practicalities of running a raid guild.

Up until now, Blizzard have basically said “we want to reward you for your greater logistical abilities in getting 25 people together, rather than 10″. However, they appear to have reconsidered that position, since the extra work largely fell on the shoulders of a few people (raid leaders, guild leaders, class leaders, guild recruitment officers, etc), but the rewards accrued even to the people that logged on 5 minutes before the raid started and logged out immediately after it finished. Going by their announced decision, Blizzard appear to have decided they would like the focus for rewards to be more on what people can do in-game, rather than on the external social structures involved.

@ Roguewind, “If you want a complete set, you have to do some 25 content.”

Assumes you can get into a 25. Which usually means people leaving their band of friends guilds of 12 to 20 people and finding a huge group that also happens to have an opening for them. Or finding another band of 12 to 20 and work the logistics of dual-guilding it. Or any of a number of things that are, for most of us, NOT FUN. (I thoroughly disliked joining a group of 30 and being the low-geared priest only got to see the actual run once a month or so — when the geared regular healers weren’t available.)

Now your point of different content is great, I think. And I think non-substantive awards — achievements, for example — are worthwhile unique rewards. But again, I did 40s and 25s and 10s so I think I’ve a little basis for my opinion. And that opinion is that at some point the return for increasing size becomes more work than fun.

Well put BBB. I feel extremely lucky that I enjoy running 10s AND 25s with my guild. Sure, we may get further in the 10s, but that may be partially influenced by the fact that we’re sporting 25man gear. And as a supporter of true 10man guilds, I think this is a wonderful change. With gear being equalized, 25man guilds won’t be able to stomp through the 10man version anymore.

As others have sad, my only sadness is the shared lock-out. Right now, we have trouble fielding a 25man during the week, due to east coast/west coast schedules. Sundays, we all get together and create mayhem together. I like running with all my guildies – if I have to choose, I will be a sad bear.

And for the complaints about A team vs B team – when we ran Kara, we’d just have all 20 people on at the same time and build raids from that. Aside from couples, it was rarely the same team twice. Everyone got to see the same content at about the same pace. Aside from the time zone differences, that’s how we’re rolling now.

Thanks for another great topic to chew on!
I don’t really know what the changes will feel like, and won’t until Cata is out and I am playing. I do know that I feel a bit concerned, but most of us are uncomfortable with change in general. Currently I’m leaning toward agreeing with Lissanna from restokin, that it might be better to do away with both 10’s and 25’s and make all raids 15 player. And I would like to see a shorter lock out if both are to share, perhaps a three day lock out. But really, who knows? From a “fun” stand point I have a much better time in my weekly ICC10 group, but I do sometimes like the “epic” feel of a 25. Sadly I must admit that I have taken to running GDKP 25’s for fun and profit. . .Well for profit anyway. . .I’m reminded of the run last week where the the raid leader stated “clear vent,” and someone said, “You are not a very fun guy,” and he responded, “This is not supposed to be fun, it is your job, shut up and kill stuff.”
The purposed loot changes may well eliminate the GDKP runs which may or may not be a good thing.